Wednesday, March 17, 2004

One strategy that major record companies have been employing lately to deter downloading is adding bonus computer content to new CD releases. I recently discovered that this technique is not unique to CD's, but had in fact been practiced in the vinyl era as well. That's right: there were a handful of records released in the late 70's and early 80's that contained computer programs as part of the audio. This is totally insane, and totally great.

i had no idea some records came with sounds that could be played into a computer and reveal a computer game. i had the pete shelley record they mention, but i don't think i ever realized there was a useable computer program in it. of course, i didn't have a computer at that time so it would have hardly mattered. via scrubbles.